(JTA) — A Yeshiva University student who was the victim of anti-Semitism while an exchange student at St. Andrews University in Scotland will donate his compensation award to victims of terrorism.
The anti-Semitic act against Chanan Reitblat was committed in March on the same day that Palestinian terrorists murdered five members of the Fogel family while they slept in their West Bank home. Reitblat said in a statement that he will donate the nearly $500 in compensation ordered from his attacker to a fund set up to assist the family.
His attacker, Paul Donnachie, 19, was sentenced in a local court Wednesday to 150 hours of community service for insulting in a vulgar way an Israeli flag given to Reitblat by his brother, an Israeli soldier. He also told Reitblat that Israel was a terrorist state and the flag was a terrorist symbol.
Donnachie, a member of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was expelled from the university. Following the sentence, Donnachie stood outside the court with pro-Palestinian campaigners holding Israeli flags defaced with red paint.
A second student, Samuel Colchester, 20, was acquitted due to insufficient evidence. He was suspended from the university for one year.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
